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“I’m so underwhelmed. Christmas is in a few days, and the only things you have in your fridge are, like, eggs and butter. What was the plan here?”
I shut the fridge door. “I have other fridges.” I raise my chin towards the other side of the kitchen. “Frozen meat is in the chest freezer in the pantry. Root vegetables too—not in the fridge. In crates.”
She lets out a humming sound before she heads over to the pantry and rifles through the chest freezer. Five minutes later, she emerges with a couple packs of frozen meat, some of my root vegetables, and a jar of beef stock. I’m about to ask her what she’s up to, but she disappears into the pantry once again and returns with a half dozen spice jars.
“I’m assuming you have wine somewhere around here.” Deftly, she gathers her hair into a new ponytail—like she means business.
“I’ve got a cellar,” I respond, which I know excites her because she lowers her jaw a fraction and quickly shuts her mouth when she realizes she’s about to drop her chilly façade.
“I’ll need a Burgundy,” she states, raising an eyebrow in challenge.
“Pinot noir work?”
It apparently passes muster because she nods without a word. Silently, I thank Brent for arranging three months of weekly calls with one of the best sommeliers in London, per my request, after I discerned from Julia’s Instagram that she lives and dies for wine.
When I return with the bottle from the cellar, Julia has laid out her ingredients in groups on my kitchen island.
“Do you have any fresh herbs?” She opens the bottle of paprika and sniffs it. “Even as I say that aloud, I know the answer is going to be no.”
I nod though. “In the greenhouse.”
“You have a greenhouse?”
“No, I just said there were herbs in a greenhouse I don’t actually have,” I return mordantly, enjoying the way she rolls her eyes. Before she can dissect me with one of her quips, I motion for her to follow me.
We bundle and head towards the cabin’s west exit, which is closest to the greenhouse and the pond. Before we go, I do a quick check-over to see if she’ll be warm enough. Her clothes are too fashionable to be element-appropriate, but it’ll do for a quick walk.
She sees me studying her and she scoffs. “Oh, don’t tell me you’re worried about me out there in the storm, Mr. Winter.”
“Stay close,” I advise. “When you’re walking in the snow, you have to lean forward and shorten your steps.”
“Should I learn some bird calls so they can rescue me if I fall into a drift?”
Screw me for caring. I don’t validate her question with a response. I just shoot her a chastising look and lead the way outside.
The snow has picked up in the last hour, and now that the sun is setting, the atmosphere has darkened to a somber gray. A couple feet out, I start to regret this. I should have asked her what she wanted and gone by myself to retrieve it. But when I glance back, I’m pleasantly surprised to see her grinning while we trudge forward, like she too recognizes how ridiculous the situation is.
The greenhouse isn’t far from the cabin, but in these conditions the trip is an Everest summit. It takes us a couple of minutes, but we do eventually reach the door. With unwieldy, gloved-fingers, I type in the code and usher her inside. Her expression betrays her cool. She takes in the rows of herbs filling the tables and shelves with undeniable awe.
“You grew all this?” she finally asks as she pulls her hood away from her face and shakes snow out of her hair.
Nod.
“Even the tomatoes?” She bends to examine a cherry tomato plant. “I tried to grow tomatoes once. I had a windowsill plant back at my house in Boston, but then it died when I went to southeast Asia for a month.”
“It’s not hard. You could do it if you were around.”
Julia continues up the row, reading the labels for the different plants. When she reaches the end of the row, she weaves around to the other side and continues. What I thought would be a quick trip is steadily evolving into a twenty-minute ordeal—but I’m not angry about it.
She pokes at a cucumber plant. “Wow. It’s strange to see this here when it’s so…”
“So fucking cold,” I fill in.
“Exactly. Can I grab one of these too?”
“Take whatever you want.” I hand her a wicker basket.
For the next few minutes, Julia travels along the rows of plants, grabbing things here and there and adding them to her basket. A cucumber. Herbs. Arugula and some other greens. She has more than the two of us will need for tonight, but I don’t stop her. Her expression has shifted into something at the intersection of glee and calm, and I must admit, it’s a welcome change of pace.
